We are in Phoenix, AZ today. This morning my pad starts playing little songs in the other room. Apps have a bad habit of turning notifications back on even after I turn them off. It kept up, so I went and had a look. The refrigerator door, back in Austin, was open. We called my daughter back at home and sure enough, it wasn’t closed all the way. I also need to replace the water filter.
This week we lost Pucci. He was with us for almost 17 years and a part of the family. It is difficult to find the words to describe him. He was as clever as any animal I have ever seen. He had a big heart and a big personality and seemed to make an impression on everyone. We will miss him.
My old friend and office mate has written a book about his adventures in tech, professional gambling and Wall Street. I believe I may have taken him to his first casino in Las Vegas on a drive from the Midwest to the Bay Area. I’m told that part isnt in the book, but that I may have a small mention. On preorder.
I had the good fortune to meet Rodney Brooks in the late 1980s, before Roomba. He had some little toy cars he had fitted with programmable logic to do fairly sophisticated behaviors. It was actually an early inspiration for my own work in programmable logic. I kept up with AI over the years and my opinions tend to track Brooks. Some would say it is pessimistic, but I would call it realistic. In a nutshell, these systems will fail (perhaps a sign of intelligence itself) so you need to be ready for failures. A short, readable one from IEEE.
Some photos of Austin, mostly the new Google building near the library.
There hasn’t been a Jazz Fest for a couple of years now because of COVID-19, but I haven’t been myself for many years. Ran across this 2019 collection from the Smithsonian. Over five hours of the best of New Orleans Music.
A breakdown of some of the activities of Team Trump on Jan 6. Of course once phone records are released we will find out what really happened.
Looking into battery storage for home use again. My goal would be to have enough solar to power the house charge car plus batteries for nighttime use. I know solar panels have gone down dramatically in price but wasn’t sure exactly what the data on batteries was. Now I see 10x this decade, with $100 per kwh already achieved for a large installation. Today this is attractive. In five years batteries in homes should be a no-brainer. Should also make electric cars a no-brainer over gas. Pretty much the same for large scale grid applications. This could, like most modern technologies, happen quickly.
Saw this story over the weekend. Picked up by the BBC.
Some charts of the performance of various financial instruments. From Compound Advisors blog.
Steven A. Guccione 